Love | Relationships | Sleep | Couples

Why I Want a Separate Bedroom From My Boyfriend

You get more sleep and it’s better for your relationship

“I lay awake staring into the dark. Beside me my partner snuffles and makes puffing noises. Then he clears his throat. I grit my teeth, wanting to kick him to make him shut up. Or maybe a jab in the ribs would do it. Then he makes a sort of choking noise. I remind myself he has a cold, it’s not his fault. When he makes his strangled velociraptor noise I give up and head to the sofa.” — Wendy Scott, sleep deprived author.

One year ago, my partner and I were planning to move house. We had our eyes on a selection of homes in our chosen area.

Before joint redundancies halted our moving plans, our favorite house had two large master bedrooms on the first floor. Both rooms had a walk-in closet and an en-suite bathroom. We liked the house’s layout, but we also wanted our bedroom away from the kid’s bedrooms.

My partner’s son is a gamer and howls and shrieks his way through the night. My daughter is also nocturnal and likes to watch TV or study into the early hours of the night.

We looked at each other, both thinking the house would be ideal.

‘Only problem is,’ I thought glumly, ‘one of them will want the room next to ours.’

On occasion, we had taken the kids to open homes, and they had been very vocal about which room they wanted. They also shared that it was vastly unfair that the master suite was the biggest. All rooms should be the same size.

The kids were surprised to hear that the master suite was the biggest because that’s where the people who paid for the house slept.

I was mulling over these thoughts when we got home, grumbling to myself that my partner and I should have the two largest rooms, if anything. Why should we have to share a bathroom and a closet? After all, the kids were getting a room each.

Hold the phone! What about if my partner and I took the two largest bedrooms? We would have our own bathrooms, our own closets, we could decorate our rooms as we saw fit and have plenty of space.

Advantages of separate rooms

When I thought about my partner and I each having our own rooms, it made sense:

• I get a better night’s sleep on my own.
• If one of us is sick and wants to go to bed early, we are not disturbed when the other comes to bed.
• We can turn the light off when we want with no ‘I’ll just finish this chapter’ malarkey.
• I can get up early, and my partner can have a lie-in without me disturbing him.
• My partner can stay up late gaming.
• We can both look at our phones without the other one wanting the light off or complaining about being woken up.
• If I wake up in the night, I can get a cup of tea and read without disturbing him.
• I like the room warm; he likes it cold.
• We can listen to music or watch videos with the sound on without having to wear headphones.
• We each get our own closet and bathroom.
• We each get a retreat during the day that is exclusively ours.
• I’d have a different place to write.
• If we sleep separately, we can have our own pets with us. Two adults and three dogs in the same bed is too crowded.
• We can ‘visit’ whenever we want.

I was thrilled with my idea, my partner, not so much. I’m still trying to convince him it would be a good idea.

“The worst thing in the world is to try to sleep and not to.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald

What my friends and colleagues said

I decided to ask around my friends and see what they thought. Surprisingly, some of them already had separate rooms but don’t talk about it because people are critical.

The reasons they cited were:

• A partners shift work meant early nights or very early mornings
• Not being able to sleep with someone else in the bed
• Hot flushes and night sweats making sleeping with another body in the bed unbearable
• A partner’s snoring
• Needing their own space
• Insomnia made worse by sharing a room with a partner
• Sleeping in the same room every night reduces the bedroom to a place of domesticity rather than romance.

Crikey! This separate room thing is catching on.

“Happiness consists of getting enough sleep. Just that, nothing more.” — Robert A. Heinlein

I brought the topic up at work. The three people I talked to in the staff kitchen nonchalantly said they all had separate rooms from their partners. I reported back to my team and collected two more aficionados of the practice.

What! Am I the only adult in Auckland that still shares a room with their partner? What is going on? I thought I would be the avant-garde one, but it seems I’m the one left behind.

What the internet said

I thought I’d do a bit of research online. The Queen and Prince Philip happily wave at each other from their respective rooms each night in The Crown. But they are royalty and live in palaces. What about ordinary people?

According to sleep scientist Wendy Troxel Ph.D. there is a name for couples sleeping in separate rooms. It’s called sleep divorce.

In her article Is Sleeping in Separate Beds Bad For Your Relationship, Dr. Troxel says that people sleep worse with a partner and that sleepless nights can lead to relationship harm.

So tired people are grumpier, and their relationships suffer. Makes sense — another reason for separate rooms.

Couples having separate rooms traditionally get a bad rap. People assume that it means the relationship is in trouble. But this is not necessarily the case, as borne out by the people I’ve spoken to and what I’ve read online.

Why should married people share a room when singles and kids don’t?

We don’t question anyone’s desire to have their own space when they’re single, so why do we demand individuals give up their right to privacy and alone time as soon as they partner up romantically? — Why Some Couples Sleep in Separate Bedrooms — Kayla Kibbe.

It seems we are quietly re-inventing how we use our bedrooms, and no longer using where we choose to sleep as a measure of our relationships’ health.

Final comments

I haven’t managed to convince my partner. Yet.

If and when we move, not having my own room won’t be a deal-breaker. But like needing a home office with the advent of working from home, a separate room to facilitate a better night’s sleep, is now on my radar.

Times they are a-changing.

And if it’s good enough for the Queen, it’s good enough for me.

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